Parallel

Our last night on the road we spend in Nowhere, Ohio. The residents seem inclined to go along with this moniker, even though I suppose the place has a name. Everything closes early, the roadside motel dark in the back of a gas station parking lot when we pull in. Long after dark, we snake our way out of the highwaya exit stop again to find a field under the stars and tune our radio to the drive in theater's frequency. An old classic revs up as the night grows cold outside our window. I wish for a blanket and a shooting star and get neither. Come morning we gather our things quickly, leave before breakfast, and make it to New Jersey by early afternoon. 

There's a certain thing that happens when you speed out of the Holland Tunnel and onto Manhattan soil at the appendix just off Canal Street. It's always that deep breath, always that slight settling of your bones into alignment. But arriving in New York, after so much time away, in a car that has crossed the entire country and which is now yours to keep on this ridiculous island, turned out to be more than my little heart could handle. I exploded in uncontrollable giggles and sobs behind the steering wheel, looking around in every direction and trying desperately to hold the buildings, to touch the concrete. Rush hour traffic was picking up, the street a tangle of cars and a mess of pedestrians and skateboarders, and still I reveled in the sight. So this is what it feels like to be home, I thought, and I know now after so many years it's stupid to keep harping on it. Of course this is what it feels like. How many times must New York tell you it is the best thing you have before you start to take it for granted?

I dropped him in Brooklyn later, just as the sun was setting across the bridges and everything had that sherbet glow, had that incandescent hum. By the time I reached my own stoop I nearly forgot I had been away, nearly forgot I had crossed the great land and that the back of my spine was bringing a whole new manuscript with it up to my little desk by the window. My muscles weary with the miles under my feet, my soul still buzzed with all that it had seen.

This year bathes us in tragedy. Joy is our best resistance.